1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of portable audio devices. More particularly, the present invention provides for the wireless transmission of audio content from a single user to one or more additional nearby users.
2. The Relevant Technology
Numerous forms of personal portable media devices are proliferating today. One example is satellite radio, or Satellite Digital Audio Radio Service (SDARS), which is the broadcast of digital audio programming via satellites directly to users. Through satellite radio, subscribers can receive high quality, uninterrupted, digital data such as radio over more than one hundred radio channels, for example digital quality music, talk radio, sports, news, weather, and the like. Often, a user of satellite radio has a small portable device they use to receive the digital data stream. Other examples of portable media players are portable digital audio devices, often referred to as MP3 players, portable CD players, portable DVD players, notebook computers, and the like.
Regardless of the type of portable media device, it is often desirable for a user to play music from their portable media device such that their friends or others in their vicinity can hear it. Because portable media devices typically transmit their audio content to users by headphones, either wired or wireless, sharing audio content conventionally requires either sharing headphones or connecting to a speaker system. In fact, it is not uncommon to find users passing around a pair of headphones to one another, taking turns listening to the audio content. Not only is this cumbersome and unsanitary, but it prevents the users from simultaneously experiencing the shared content.
Accordingly, improved and simplified methods of sharing content between users of portable media devices are needed.